HOBOKEN — The problem is a complex and dangerous one: By some counts, more than 30 million pounds of unexploded bombs, mines, missiles and munitions lie off the coast of at least 16 states. In the past year, college students have been working to design an underwater drone to find these explosives before they are detonated.

A team of undergraduate students from Stevens Institute of Technology has worked for the past year on its own remotely controlled vehicle, working with $15,000 in federal funding. The college was one of five colleges tasked by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to design an unmanned underwater vehicle that could find explosive devices that have been dumped in the ocean.

Finding these explosives is crucial, but having divers to look for the devices is too dangerous, said Michael DeLorme, research associate at Stevens Center for Maritime Systems.

“It’s a big problem, and sending people into the water is dangerous,” he said at a demonstration at the college on Wednesday. “The idea is to take these dangerous missions and remove the men and women as much as possible.”

The students —Ethan Hayon, Joe Huyett, Don Montemarano, Mark Siembab, Michael Giglia and Brandon Vandegrift— gave a demonstration of their drone on Wednesday at the college's Davidson Lab. Simply put, Stevens’ vehicle resembles the futuristic ships seen in the "Star Wars" saga — specifically the front of podracers seen in “Phantom Menace” — and uses metal and laser detection to find lurking explosives.

The vehicle is controlled with a video game controller, can go 40 feet deep and is equipped with roughly four hours of battery power. Three cameras attached to the vehicle allow the driver to watch the vehicle’s movements and surroundings.

After an object is detected, the drone collects data, which is transmitted to the surface then sent wirelessly to the shore. The dimensions and characteristics can then be compared to a database of unexploded munitions, so that experts can identify the object and figure out how to safely deactivate it.

Last year the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office provided $15,000 to the students to design and build the vehicle as part of its Perseus II project, according to Stevens officials.

In 2012, oceanographers from Texas A&M University estimated that more than 31 million pounds of explosives lie in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of several states, due to decades worth of militaries dumping unused bombs into the ocean.

The Stevens' students started working on the vehicle in February 2013, averaging 10 hours per week on the project.

The students demonstrated their project in November for the Rapid Reaction Technology Office in November at Florida Keys Community College. As is, the design probably isn't ready for use by the federal government, but a few of the students plan to continue work on the vehicle. Giglia, who is part of the school's five-year mechanical engineering graduate program, said that the project was probably the most fulfilling part of his education at Stevens thus far.

“I came to school, and I was hoping to find a project I could pit myself into, and this was that project,” he said.